A $50K Endorsement

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Tobin Smith is a regular fixture on Fox News “Bulls and Bears” investment program. Analysts come on and give their latest prognostications on the markets in general and specific equities. Yoda does not watch this program so has no opinion of Tobin, but apparently he seems like a credible guest.

I don’t know how much compensation Tobin received from Fox or how much he makes from his day job of managing money. Tobin got a strange urge to endorse a microcap stock, Petrosonic Energy aka PSON. He sent out a special 20 page addition of his newsletter “The New Next Big Thing” to potential investors. Plus he sent out emails to other potential investors telling them about the “investment opportunity of your lifetime.”

Buried in the fine print of the newsletter was a note that Petrosonic paid Tobin’s company $50k for “advertising.”

One small point. Tobin kind of forgot to mention the rising losses, negative cash flow and a “going-concern letter” from the auditor. This is the letter where the auditor says it is not clear if the business has the financial strength to remain a “going concern.”

I would write more, but I have to go enter buy orders for all of the widows and orphans portfolios.

Chuck Jaffe over at Marketwatch has the ugly details. [1]

I am not really sure how different Tobin is from other commentators that come on and hype a stock. Many of them hold the stock and want to get help pushing up the price. Clearly this benefits the commentator, although not quite as directly as in Tobin’s case. All of it helps remind me of why I do not watch CNBC, Fox Business or Bloomberg programs.